Cuatro de Mayo Means Mas Musica

Wow, it's been a rough couple of weeks for new music releases. Cypress Hill. Peter Frampton. Yikes. Relax, music lovers, it's time to come out of your bomb shelters. May is here and so is a huge week for new albums.

Like, really, really huge.

First of all, The Hold Steady will release their much-anticipated Heaven is Whenever. The band is adjusting to the departure of their keyboard guy, Franz Nicolay, but, judging by some released tracks, they manage to stay pretty close to their trademark sound, even with the standard guitar-bass-drums configuration. Actually, "Barely Breathing" features keys, and it has more of a new sound than the other tracks. Oh, and keep an ear out for a pretty slick guitar solo in "Rock Problems."

In poppier, more harmonic news, The New Pornographers look to snap their one-album losing streak with Together, their first release since 2007's Challengers, which (people might hate me for saying) was downright crappy. The significantly less crappy Together has been streaming on NPR for a while, and it appears that the Canadians have discarded the crappiness of their last release in favor of a non-crappy sound anchored by faster if not more upbeat guitar and cello riffs. This is great news for New Porn fans who worried that the band only had three extremely uncrappy albums in them. In summation: Challengers was crappy; Together isn't.

Oh God, there's still so much more.

Freaking Broken Social Scene is back. More Canadians. Sure, they were never super gone, but Forgiveness Rock Record is their first actual album in half a decade. All those musicians? All that time? I have three predictions: it will be eclectic, it will be pretty damn good, it will be pretty damn eclectic and good. Early listens (they've been streaming it on their website, check out that link back there) indicate that I am totally right. As an added bonus, one of the songs starts off with the lyric "Ungrateful little motherfuck," which is just delightful.

For people with other tastes, non-Canadian hip-hoppers Bone Thugs-n-Harmony will drop their first record since Flesh-n-Bone was released from prison (and possibly their last before he goes back). Now, I'll admit I'm not extremely familiar with the aging Clevelanders, but I do feel confident in saying that they will do their best to recapture the sound that brought them so much commercial success in the 90s.

Man, that's a ton of good music for one week. Of course, for every yin, there must be a yang. I feel obligated to mention that, in case there are any aural masochists reading this, May 4th will mark the release of albums by - I kid you not - Michael Bolton, Papa Roach, Godsmack and Toni Braxton. True, that would be an excellent lineup for The Surreal Life, but I'm guessing not a great three hours - give or take (hopefully take) - of music.

- Greg Gallant, Copy Chief